Explain tamales to me like I’m five
October 2, 2019 1:54 PM Subscribe
(and didn’t grow up with Mexican food). They’re delicious, but I feel like I fundamentally don’t get them. It’s like a dumpling... but you can’t eat the outside?
Like, if the corn husk is for steaming but not for eating, then why don’t you remove it before serving? (This makes street-stall tamales kind of messy and inconvenient.) And if they’re good for steaming, why don’t we steam lots of other things in corn husks too? And since there are many ways to steam/cook grains without a shell, why don’t we cook tamales or their insides in a pot like rice or quinoa? Halp.
Like, if the corn husk is for steaming but not for eating, then why don’t you remove it before serving? (This makes street-stall tamales kind of messy and inconvenient.) And if they’re good for steaming, why don’t we steam lots of other things in corn husks too? And since there are many ways to steam/cook grains without a shell, why don’t we cook tamales or their insides in a pot like rice or quinoa? Halp.
Its kinda like serving a hard boiled egg in the shell? you cooked it in it, it needs to be removed, but its on the eater to do, not the server. I know that dumplings arent intrinsically asian but i would compare it more to the sticky rice packets some dim sum places serve - you cant really cook the contents without the covering, and people generally want to remove the covering right before eating (i have been served fancy tamales that were partially or fully removed from their husks before plating).
You're question is coming from a kinda weird place culturally - tamales developed in the Americas bc corn was/is life. corn in its myriad forms is literally what sustained many american civilizations, but by the time that masa has made its way inside the husk its already been substantially processed by adding lime (a process called nixtamalization) which breaks down the corn substantially. The corn that goes into that masa is not really edible unless processed in this way - you would not want or be able to eat it off the ear and even after a long long time of boiling the kernels in a pot of water . . . it just would not be good. If you ground it up and made a porridge with water it would be like polenta, but thats not the same thing exactly.
incidentally many places make tamales in leaves from banana plants and the like, something i know is also found in India and other parts of Asia.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 2:04 PM on October 2, 2019 [24 favorites]
You're question is coming from a kinda weird place culturally - tamales developed in the Americas bc corn was/is life. corn in its myriad forms is literally what sustained many american civilizations, but by the time that masa has made its way inside the husk its already been substantially processed by adding lime (a process called nixtamalization) which breaks down the corn substantially. The corn that goes into that masa is not really edible unless processed in this way - you would not want or be able to eat it off the ear and even after a long long time of boiling the kernels in a pot of water . . . it just would not be good. If you ground it up and made a porridge with water it would be like polenta, but thats not the same thing exactly.
incidentally many places make tamales in leaves from banana plants and the like, something i know is also found in India and other parts of Asia.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 2:04 PM on October 2, 2019 [24 favorites]
why don’t we cook tamales or their insides in a pot
My (white, euro-American) mother-in-law does make a dish called tamale pie, which is basically the ingredients of a tamale baked into a midwestern casserole and topped with a cornbread crust. It’s good, if perhaps sacrilege. I make it sometimes now too :)
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:11 PM on October 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
My (white, euro-American) mother-in-law does make a dish called tamale pie, which is basically the ingredients of a tamale baked into a midwestern casserole and topped with a cornbread crust. It’s good, if perhaps sacrilege. I make it sometimes now too :)
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:11 PM on October 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
Like, if the corn husk is for steaming but not for eating, then why don’t you remove it before serving?
Because they're hot.
And if they’re good for steaming, why don’t we steam lots of other things in corn husks too?
En papillote
Zongzi
Lo mai gai
Bánh chưng
Bánh tẻ
etc.
And since there are many ways to steam/cook grains without a shell, why don’t we cook tamales or their insides in a pot like rice or quinoa?
Individual pots for each tamale would be expensive and impractical.
posted by zamboni at 2:15 PM on October 2, 2019 [25 favorites]
Because they're hot.
And if they’re good for steaming, why don’t we steam lots of other things in corn husks too?
En papillote
Zongzi
Lo mai gai
Bánh chưng
Bánh tẻ
etc.
And since there are many ways to steam/cook grains without a shell, why don’t we cook tamales or their insides in a pot like rice or quinoa?
Individual pots for each tamale would be expensive and impractical.
posted by zamboni at 2:15 PM on October 2, 2019 [25 favorites]
Because when you unwrap a tamale it starts to dry out immediately and the steamy goodness goes away.
posted by ananci at 2:18 PM on October 2, 2019 [34 favorites]
posted by ananci at 2:18 PM on October 2, 2019 [34 favorites]
I've seen tamale pie on the menu of several nm restaurants serving regional food.
posted by brujita at 2:19 PM on October 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by brujita at 2:19 PM on October 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
In further south parts of central America, they wrap tamales in banana leaves rather than corn husks when steaming. The husks or leaves keep the otherwise not-super-sturdy corn masa together until it's fully cooked. The corn masa lacks the stickiness of wheat gluten, which is why they're wrapped in leaves, unlike other steamed starch-around-meat foods like dumplings or steamed buns.
posted by sleeping bear at 2:20 PM on October 2, 2019 [25 favorites]
posted by sleeping bear at 2:20 PM on October 2, 2019 [25 favorites]
An even gringo-ier analogy is if you've ever cooked meat and potatoes in foil packets in the fire when you're camping.
The foil packet is to keep it all together, to keep the juices in for moisture and flavor, and to keep it hot once you pull it off the heat. You unwrap it at the last minute so it's nice and hot when you eat it. You don't eat the outside because… it's not food.
All of those things are true of the corn/banana leaf on a tamale.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:42 PM on October 2, 2019 [17 favorites]
The foil packet is to keep it all together, to keep the juices in for moisture and flavor, and to keep it hot once you pull it off the heat. You unwrap it at the last minute so it's nice and hot when you eat it. You don't eat the outside because… it's not food.
All of those things are true of the corn/banana leaf on a tamale.
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:42 PM on October 2, 2019 [17 favorites]
You may also be interested to know that in Guatemala* there are tamales made with rice, potatoes, or untreated corn in place of normal tamale dough (which is made from masa, a.k.a. dried corn treated with alkali).
The rice and potato ones get filled with meat. The untreated corn ones usually don't, and are eaten like North Americans eat cornbread. There are also tamales made with normal masa but no filling, and ones made with a mix of masa and herbs.
Some of these aren't especially ancient. Rice in particular only arrived in Central America 500 years ago. But they're examples of the region that invented tamales using the same technique in other ways.
*And maybe Mexico too, I don't know.
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:02 PM on October 2, 2019
The rice and potato ones get filled with meat. The untreated corn ones usually don't, and are eaten like North Americans eat cornbread. There are also tamales made with normal masa but no filling, and ones made with a mix of masa and herbs.
Some of these aren't especially ancient. Rice in particular only arrived in Central America 500 years ago. But they're examples of the region that invented tamales using the same technique in other ways.
*And maybe Mexico too, I don't know.
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:02 PM on October 2, 2019
There's a dim sum dish that's essentially leaves (tea? bamboo?) around rice around filling (usually meat). You keep the leaves around it until it's ready to eat for, I think, a similar reason -- as soon as you take them off, the thing starts to dry out and fall apart.
posted by amtho at 3:08 PM on October 2, 2019
posted by amtho at 3:08 PM on October 2, 2019
I mean...even fast food burgers come in a wrapper that you remove while eating? It’s the opposite of messy and inconvenient, keeps your fingers clean and the food together.
posted by The Toad at 3:13 PM on October 2, 2019 [22 favorites]
posted by The Toad at 3:13 PM on October 2, 2019 [22 favorites]
since there are many ways to steam/cook grains without a shell, why don’t we cook tamales or their insides in a pot like rice or quinoa?
I think one of the critical things here is that the masa--if we're talking about traditional mexican tamales, at least, as I bet there are literally hundreds of different variations that are less well-known in the US*--in a tamal is not (only) "grains." Don't let their apparent simplicity fool you, tamales are a miracle of food preparation technology and like most very old foods are fascinatingly more than the sum of their relatively humble parts.
Corn is the common denominator and the bulk of the filling in most tamales, of course, but it's corn that has been nixtamalized (a precolonial process that increases corn's nutrient availability, destroys toxins that might have developed in less-than-ideal storage conditions, and makes it softer and tastier--the name for the process and its result, nixtamal, is derived from Nahuatl, and is the where the word tamal/tamale comes from), ground to a specific consistency, and then mixed with whipped/aerated fat, spices, broth, etc. If you just dumped ground masa (or, heaven forbitd, un-nixtamalized cornmeal) into a corn husk and steamed it I'm pretty sure it would be a rock when you took it out.
*If you have a Filipino bakery near you, see if they have tamales--they'll be made of ground rice and wrapped in a banana leaf. Same basic form, but totally different.
posted by pullayup at 3:18 PM on October 2, 2019 [15 favorites]
I think one of the critical things here is that the masa--if we're talking about traditional mexican tamales, at least, as I bet there are literally hundreds of different variations that are less well-known in the US*--in a tamal is not (only) "grains." Don't let their apparent simplicity fool you, tamales are a miracle of food preparation technology and like most very old foods are fascinatingly more than the sum of their relatively humble parts.
Corn is the common denominator and the bulk of the filling in most tamales, of course, but it's corn that has been nixtamalized (a precolonial process that increases corn's nutrient availability, destroys toxins that might have developed in less-than-ideal storage conditions, and makes it softer and tastier--the name for the process and its result, nixtamal, is derived from Nahuatl, and is the where the word tamal/tamale comes from), ground to a specific consistency, and then mixed with whipped/aerated fat, spices, broth, etc. If you just dumped ground masa (or, heaven forbitd, un-nixtamalized cornmeal) into a corn husk and steamed it I'm pretty sure it would be a rock when you took it out.
*If you have a Filipino bakery near you, see if they have tamales--they'll be made of ground rice and wrapped in a banana leaf. Same basic form, but totally different.
posted by pullayup at 3:18 PM on October 2, 2019 [15 favorites]
And since there are many ways to steam/cook grains without a shell, why don’t we cook tamales or their insides in a pot like rice or quinoa?
Tamales made with corn, or more correctly with a type of corn flour. There are in fact other ways to cook it, which is why you also have corn tortillas, for example, which are also typically made with masa harina. Dumplings are also a thing. The reason you don't just cook it in a pot like rice is the same reason you wouldn't just boil rice flour in a pot the way you do rice, because presumably you don't feel like having glue for dinner unless you've got some additional preparation steps going. But other corn preparations are available in basically any way that rice or wheat based dishes would be: breads, porridges, sugar-frosted breakfast cereals, whatever.
Corn that hasn't been nixtamalized is totally edible, but people who survive on a diet of something like polenta are prone to getting pellagra, whereas nixtamalized corn doesn't have that problem.
As far as tamales in particular: My experience with improperly wrapped tamales is that they can in fact wind up partly turning into a soppy mess in the seaming process, which is why my grandmother turns over in her grave and I make tamales with the easier-to-wrangle parchment paper. They wouldn't have the same consistency if they were made to be dumplings.
posted by Sequence at 3:18 PM on October 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
Tamales made with corn, or more correctly with a type of corn flour. There are in fact other ways to cook it, which is why you also have corn tortillas, for example, which are also typically made with masa harina. Dumplings are also a thing. The reason you don't just cook it in a pot like rice is the same reason you wouldn't just boil rice flour in a pot the way you do rice, because presumably you don't feel like having glue for dinner unless you've got some additional preparation steps going. But other corn preparations are available in basically any way that rice or wheat based dishes would be: breads, porridges, sugar-frosted breakfast cereals, whatever.
Corn that hasn't been nixtamalized is totally edible, but people who survive on a diet of something like polenta are prone to getting pellagra, whereas nixtamalized corn doesn't have that problem.
As far as tamales in particular: My experience with improperly wrapped tamales is that they can in fact wind up partly turning into a soppy mess in the seaming process, which is why my grandmother turns over in her grave and I make tamales with the easier-to-wrangle parchment paper. They wouldn't have the same consistency if they were made to be dumplings.
posted by Sequence at 3:18 PM on October 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
(When I was a kid, tamales came in a can, and each was individually wrapped in waxed paper.)
posted by Rat Spatula at 3:19 PM on October 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Rat Spatula at 3:19 PM on October 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
Also, as several people have noted, the corn husk is potentially both the lunchbox and the plate, and arguably predates the invention of either.
posted by pullayup at 3:22 PM on October 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by pullayup at 3:22 PM on October 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
The Chilean version of tamales is humitas, basically a tamal without anything in it. We also have pastel de choclo, which is a baked corn pie, with chicken and beef and onions in individual clay dishes and is delicious, and pastelera which is pretty much the same thing in a larger pan.
posted by signal at 3:26 PM on October 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by signal at 3:26 PM on October 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
"Corn that hasn't been nixtamalized is totally edible, but people who survive on a diet of something like polenta are prone to getting pellagra, whereas nixtamalized corn doesn't have that problem."
Yes, nixtamalizing the corn turns bound niacin into free niacin. If you eat a corn-based diet that hasn't been nixtamalized, you will die of pellagra. (This is probably why in some cultures native to the Americas, there are religious mandates relating to the nixtamalization of corn -- it was that important.)
Pellagra became epidemic in the US South, especially after the Civil War, when people were eating corn-based diets WITHOUT nixtamalizing the corn, as they were primarily of European or African descent and didn't have the cultural food traditions of nixtamalization. The scientist dispatched by the US government to study it eventually did an experiment on prison inmates, feeding them an all-corn diet, to see if he could deliberately induce pellagra and thus prove that the corn diet was the problem. He did, and programs to diversify and improve Southern diets were put in place. (And the prisoners were freed; they got early release for participating in the study.) In the 1930s, niacin was identified as causitive, and the mechanism by which nixtamalization prevented pellagra (by freeing niacin) followed not long after. (Native groups that continued nixtamalizing never fell prey to pellagra, but their methods were considered inefficient and old-fashioned and unscientific by the colonizers.)
Tamales are part of a super-interesting history of agriculture, traditional foodways, and colonization destroying incredibly crucial pieces of those foodways, to the colonizers' own detriment.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:55 PM on October 2, 2019 [27 favorites]
Yes, nixtamalizing the corn turns bound niacin into free niacin. If you eat a corn-based diet that hasn't been nixtamalized, you will die of pellagra. (This is probably why in some cultures native to the Americas, there are religious mandates relating to the nixtamalization of corn -- it was that important.)
Pellagra became epidemic in the US South, especially after the Civil War, when people were eating corn-based diets WITHOUT nixtamalizing the corn, as they were primarily of European or African descent and didn't have the cultural food traditions of nixtamalization. The scientist dispatched by the US government to study it eventually did an experiment on prison inmates, feeding them an all-corn diet, to see if he could deliberately induce pellagra and thus prove that the corn diet was the problem. He did, and programs to diversify and improve Southern diets were put in place. (And the prisoners were freed; they got early release for participating in the study.) In the 1930s, niacin was identified as causitive, and the mechanism by which nixtamalization prevented pellagra (by freeing niacin) followed not long after. (Native groups that continued nixtamalizing never fell prey to pellagra, but their methods were considered inefficient and old-fashioned and unscientific by the colonizers.)
Tamales are part of a super-interesting history of agriculture, traditional foodways, and colonization destroying incredibly crucial pieces of those foodways, to the colonizers' own detriment.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:55 PM on October 2, 2019 [27 favorites]
if they’re good for steaming, why don’t we steam lots of other things in corn husks too?
Easiest way to cook an ear of fresh-picked sweetcorn: put the whole thing in the microwave oven, stalk and husk and silk and all, and nuke it on maximum for two minutes. Take it out, and don't peel it until it's cooled down a bit from ow ow ow goddammit my FINGERS. Add butter, salt and pepper to taste. Yum.
posted by flabdablet at 5:09 AM on October 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Easiest way to cook an ear of fresh-picked sweetcorn: put the whole thing in the microwave oven, stalk and husk and silk and all, and nuke it on maximum for two minutes. Take it out, and don't peel it until it's cooled down a bit from ow ow ow goddammit my FINGERS. Add butter, salt and pepper to taste. Yum.
posted by flabdablet at 5:09 AM on October 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Not familiar with tamales since I'm from another continent but in Asia this technique imbues the food with the fragrance and flavor of the bamboo, lotus etc. leaves used. Some southern ethnic minority groups in China have an interesting variation on this, they steam rice with other ingredients in bamboo tubes. It's a popular tourist food.
posted by whitelotus at 6:00 AM on October 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by whitelotus at 6:00 AM on October 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Another reason to steam tamales in corn husks, banana leaves or some other permeable wrapper is that they have a gigantic amount of lard (or other semisolid fat) whipped in to the dough. So much that a lump of tamale dough should float in water. Much (hopefully most?) of this melts out during the initial steaming process and it has to have somewhere to go.
posted by slkinsey at 8:00 AM on October 3, 2019
posted by slkinsey at 8:00 AM on October 3, 2019
The wrapper makes it portable. It's like Onigiri or meat pies or sandwiches. It was originally a way to make a food you can take with you somewhere in a world before plastic wrap. That or it's used for flavoring like wrapping things in bamboo or banana leaves.
I was told (by someone that lived in Mexico for a few years not a native speaker so make of it what you will) The word tamal means “roughly wrapped.” or "bundle" and that technically you could wrap your tamales in anything.
posted by wwax at 8:56 AM on October 3, 2019
I was told (by someone that lived in Mexico for a few years not a native speaker so make of it what you will) The word tamal means “roughly wrapped.” or "bundle" and that technically you could wrap your tamales in anything.
posted by wwax at 8:56 AM on October 3, 2019
One important context that hasn't been mentioned is that tamale-making, both traditionally and in modern times, is labor-intensive and thus generally done in large batches, in a somewhat-assembly-line situation where many women from the community (or nowadays also in large factory-like corporate kitchens) come together and make dozens and dozens at a time and steam them in large batches. Then the finished tamales are shared out (or if a corporate operation, sold by the dozen). Thus corn husks are used not because they are a superior steaming wrapper, but because you have lots and lots of husks on hand from when you just husked a bunch of corn. They are left in the wrapper to preserve the steam and shape for carrying home.
So if your only context for tamales is at restaurants or street carts, find a local large-batch tamale maker. If it around the holidays you may need to pre-order. The corn husks will make a lot more sense when you buy two dozen to share with your family. They are great as a pre-Christmas brunch or a New Years Day hangover cure.
posted by muddgirl at 9:30 AM on October 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
So if your only context for tamales is at restaurants or street carts, find a local large-batch tamale maker. If it around the holidays you may need to pre-order. The corn husks will make a lot more sense when you buy two dozen to share with your family. They are great as a pre-Christmas brunch or a New Years Day hangover cure.
posted by muddgirl at 9:30 AM on October 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
Since reading this thread I have not been able to shake the idea of a restaurant called Nick's Tamales and fortunately there's a food truck in OKC with that name which means I don't have to go do it myself all for some dumb pun.
posted by komara at 9:51 AM on October 3, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by komara at 9:51 AM on October 3, 2019 [8 favorites]
holy hell komara, i like tamales a whole lot but i LOVE food puns, and that has left me wondering if i should even bother trying to come up with good ones any more, because its just too good.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:26 AM on October 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 11:26 AM on October 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Gerald Ford famously tried to eat a tamale with the husk still on during his 1976 campaign against Jimmy Carter. Some say it cost him the presidency. For example see here.
posted by JonJacky at 11:57 AM on October 3, 2019
posted by JonJacky at 11:57 AM on October 3, 2019
"holy hell komara, i like tamales a whole lot but i LOVE food puns, and that has left me wondering if i should even bother trying to come up with good ones any more, because its just too good."
Best thing is that - and this is according to the couple sentences visible in Google results; I didn't actually click any links - she named it after her uncle Nick who used to make tamales. She may not even be aware of the pun. If that is the case then this truly is the best of all possible worlds.
posted by komara at 12:23 PM on October 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
Best thing is that - and this is according to the couple sentences visible in Google results; I didn't actually click any links - she named it after her uncle Nick who used to make tamales. She may not even be aware of the pun. If that is the case then this truly is the best of all possible worlds.
posted by komara at 12:23 PM on October 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
I'm honestly not clear on why you're confused. Food packaging isn't usually edible.
posted by Ahniya at 4:00 PM on October 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by Ahniya at 4:00 PM on October 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
Another tamale anecdote, I just remembered that in Tex Mex restaurants in south Texas, if they served tamales they would generally remove the husks and top them with chili and cheese. And at dive bars on weekends sometimes you could buy hot tamales from vendors who'd walk table to table (I'm sure that was a violation of TABC or food safety code, or both).
posted by muddgirl at 4:42 PM on October 3, 2019
posted by muddgirl at 4:42 PM on October 3, 2019
I had been wracking my brain for days trying to remember the Chinese dumpling made from sticky rice and filling, wrapped in various kinds of leaves (traditionally bamboo) and steamed or boiled. Then it came up in a completely unrelated context! It's called zongzi and it's sold still wrapped.
posted by muddgirl at 12:52 AM on October 11, 2019
posted by muddgirl at 12:52 AM on October 11, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by SaltySalticid at 2:03 PM on October 2, 2019 [20 favorites]